Departures immediately after the First World War

The outbreak of the first great war definitively closed the destinations in central and western Europe.

The forced re-entry in July 1914 of about 80,000 seasonal workers from Friuli who worked in the countries of the Danube basin presented dramatic situations.

The end of the war forcefully opened the markets in France, England, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and Luxembourg.

Across the ocean, the United States, especially New York, were the chosen privileged destinations for the Friuli people from the Val Meduna, Fanna and Cavasso Nuovo while Bridgeville, near Pittsburgh (PA, U.S.A.) was a small stronghold of Frisanco and Poffabro.

Australia, Sydney in particular, welcomed many people from Toppo of Travesio in Friuli.

The arrival in Buenos Aires of the people from Cordenons in the 1920s and 1930s presented another encounter with Cordenons.
"In Argentina, no other town has as many emigrants as Cordenons" points out Don Luigi Ridolfi in 1949.

It was a widespread network that still reminds us of certain complementary or privileged relationships between areas of departure and arrival.

In France, the Acquitaine countryside, the department Lot-et-Garonne to be specific, the outskirts of Paris and Lorraine represented greatly travelled destinations.
After 1924 almost all the countries that accepted Italians and people from Friuli decided to regulate their entrances.

Fascism accepted this political move seeing it as an autonomous decision but, after 1927, the government adopted many restrictions on the release of passports to emigrant workers.

Emigration was thought of as unacceptable.
Temporary emigration had to be subjected to specific limits and conditions.
The Friuli people, therefore, began to move toward the Lombard and Piedmont cities, especially as masons.

The moves, between 1931 and 1932, towards Cyrenaica and, a few years later, towards Italian western Africa reached relatively contained numbers while the departures toward the reclaimed lands of Agro Pontino, Carbonia, Mussolinia of Sardinia (known today as Arborea) and Maccarese seemed to be of interest mostly to the people from the planes and not to those from the piedmont or mountains of western Friuli.